Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Ramona Wadi
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Israel’s use of human shields in Gaza is part of its genocide against Palestinians
Now that attention has shifted from the genocide in Gaza to the Trump administration, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has admitted that it is investigating instances where Palestinians were used as human shields by its troops in the coastal enclave. “In several cases, the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division opened…
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External impositions only create more oppression for Palestinians
Palestinians in Gaza are caught between two externally-imposed plans, neither of which prioritises the decolonisation of their land. The US plan to take over Gaza and develop it as a “Rivera of the Middle East” for Israel’s benefit, which the latter has of course endorsed, is countered by the internationally-preferred…
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The EU needs to clarify where it stands on Gaza
Speaking at the Emergency Summit of the League of Arab States this week, European Council President Antonio Costa’s intervention was replete with normalised inaccuracies. Besides the usual two-state rhetoric – the EU and the international community continuously display a tenacity towards the moribund “solution” – Costa’s speech seemed to ignore…
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Whose interests do the plans for Gaza serve?
While US President Donald Trump’s plan to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza and create the “Riviera of the Middle East” has been largely opposed by the rest of the world, the proposal put forth by Egypt leaves much unanswered. What stands out from the details revealed so far is the…
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The Time Beneath the Concrete: Palestine Between Camp and Colony
Finalised during the Israeli genocide in Gaza, which Israel started on 7 October, 2023, Nasser Abourahme’s study, The Time Beneath the Concrete: Palestine Between Camp and Colony (Duke University Press, 2025), brings the Palestinian refugee camp and its many layers of context and significance to the helm. “The only way…
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Universities should stop acting as mouthpieces for Israel
Australia’s Group of Eight (GoE) leading research universities has drafted a new definition of anti-Semitism which is set to be adopted across all of the country’s 39 universities. Its text specifically bans calling for Israel’s elimination and conflates Judaism with Zionism to reinforce the Israeli narrative. “For most, but not…
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Palestinians are being displaced by rhetoric and action
Rejecting Israel’s forced displacement of Palestinians by rhetoric does not work. However, the Palestinian Authority and world leaders seem to convolute statements into purported displays of action, when the only action being taken is by Israel in its quest for ever more colonial expansion. At the 12th session of the…
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Gaza in My Phone
It is one thing to watch the news, and another to internalise the human aspect. While world leaders debated the slightest form of temporary relief for Palestinians, making it clear to the rest of us watching the Israeli genocide in Gaza unfolding that our political opposition does not matter, Lebanese…
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Forced transfer and the West’s reliance on the humanitarian paradigm
Emboldened by the US and the international community’s acceptance of its genocide, Israel is not taking long to emerge from the shadows of its own rhetoric. After US President Donald Trump said that there is no right of return for Palestinians under the proposed take-over of Gaza for real estate…
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The PA’s delusions are dangerous for Palestinians
“Whoever believes that he can impose a new deal of the century, or displace our Palestinian people and seize any inch of our land is delusional,” said Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas at the 38th African Summit in Addis Ababa on Saturday. Such words would have resonated well had Abbas…
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The international community sold out the Palestinians decades ago on the right of return
“Gaza is an essential part of a future Palestinian state,” the EU Spokesman for Foreign Affairs Anouar El Anouni stated belatedly in response to US President Donald Trump’s announcement of taking over Gaza and remodelling into a so-called “Riviera of the Middle East”. While the EU retained its diplomatic posturing…
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Israel’s attack on literature should not be normalised
Palestinian-related literature in colonised Palestine is in the crosshairs of Israel’s ongoing annihilation, as the recent raid on the Educational Bookshop in Occupied East Jerusalem portrayed. The attack should prompt the West into some profound introspection. The bookshop has been described as high profile and a stop for many visitors,…
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The world bears responsibility for the current phase of the US-Israeli alliance
US President Donald Trump’s plan to take over Gaza is the latest example of how much the international community has done nothing for Palestinians since Israel’s establishment in Palestine in 1948. Rhetorical outrage means nothing, except for the fact that several leaders are now worried that forced expulsion of Palestinians…
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Ghassan Kanafani: Selected Political Writings
“Resistance, in its plethora of meanings and images, is what motivated Ghassan Kanafani to write,” Louis Brehony and Tahrir Hamdi write in their introduction to Ghassan Kanafani: Selected Political Writings (Pluto Press, 2024). Its publication could not have been more timely as the world witnessed, first-hand, what ethnic cleansing and…
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The PA renders the Palestinians vulnerable to Israel’s ethnic cleansing
On Sunday, Palestinian Authority leader, Mahmoud Abbas, requested an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council regarding Israel’s colonial violence in the Occupied West Bank, notably the targeting of Jenin and Tulkarem Refugee Camps. Like countless other times, Abbas requested international protection for Palestinians and pressure on Israel to stop…
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Incitement and action point towards an ongoing genocide
The relief over the brokered ceasefire was soon overshadowed by ‘coincidences’ which make one wonder about the oppression that Palestinians face relentlessly from Israel, the US and the international community. The ceasefire was agreed upon during the last dredges of the Biden administration, while Israel’s ban on the UN Relief…
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The inheritance of colonisation plans and the US administrations
At the start of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the Israeli government made no secret of its intention to forcibly transfer Palestinians from the enclave and urged the international community to support its plans for what it called ‘resettlement’. “Europe has a long history of assisting refugees fleeing conflicts,” Danny Danon…
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Trump’s return and the humanitarian paradigm
Throughout his first tenure, US President Donald Trump mounted a campaign against the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) which included slander and defunding – the aim being to ultimately alter the definition of who can be classified as a Palestinian refugee and render the agency defunct.…
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Complacency and hypocrisy should not play a role in the genocidal aftermath
“Our UNRWA teams reported a good first day of the ceasefire; aid and some commercial supplies started flowing in smoothly,” the humanitarian aid agency’s Commissioner General Philipp Lazzarini stated in a post on X. The post went on to mention the release of three Israeli hostages prior to the generalised…
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What legitimacy is the PA talking about?
“While we are waiting for the ceasefire, it is important to stress that it won’t be acceptable for any other entity to govern the Gaza Strip but the legitimate Palestinian leadership and the government of the state of Palestine,” the Palestinian Authority’s Prime Minister, Mohammad Mustafa, stated during a meeting…
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The PA strives to keep its own violations away from scrutiny
The Palestinian Authority (PA)’s official news agency Wafa published details of a report describing testimonies of Palestinians from Gaza detained, tortured and interrogated by Israel. Many detainees are suffering from ongoing physical and psychological trauma, the PA’s Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners Affairs Commission’s report states. The details are horrifying. Prisoners scalded…
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When it comes to genocide and Palestine, the world is — deliberately — getting its priorities wrong
As Israel’s ban on the UN Refugee and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) looms closer, the language used by officials deals more with possibilities than realities. The reason, it seems, is to give Israel enough of an advantage in carrying out its genocide, while Palestinians remain trapped by the…
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Celebrating revolution by annihilating it is Abbas’s style
Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas should have stayed silent on the 60th anniversary of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) launching its resistance against the Israeli occupation. Anniversaries, however, are too compelling for Abbas. Palestinians, therefore, were regaled with a speech that exploited the Palestinian anti-colonial struggle, while the Palestinian Authority’s…
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The Destruction of Palestine is the Destruction of the Earth
Referring to Frantz Fanon in the preface to The Destruction of Palestine is the Destruction of the Earth (Verso Books, 2025), Andreas Malm ponders the exhibitionist nature of the coloniser. “Every suggestion of a limit to the destructive power of the settler colonial state is received as a questioning of…